Electric Six - Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart
This might be one of my favorite Electric Six songs. I had been listening to them for two months before Nick and I saw them live. And ever since they're on a majority of the time... this is one of their rare, well, semi-serious songs. Usually it's all about nuclear war on the dance floor! See For Yourself! It sure beats listening to Skeletor McHorseface... I mean, Lady Gaga.
Uh, so anyways...
Awhile back I was asked to do a pinup for Moon Girl which you can read about here. It's a pretty fresh little comic book limited series and it's only available online from Comixology & Red 5 comics.
Moon Girl by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
It's been a little while since I did any superhero style comic work, but this is more so 50s crusader stuff so I'm pretty happy how it turned out. She kinda reminds me of The Rocketeer so that was cool. I kept it to three colors. The cream for the highlights works pretty well with blue. Blue's my favorite color and I kinda use it way lots. I actually almost went with light shades of pink, but I didn't want it to come off as girlie girl. The character is a strong female lead, not a Disney Princess. And don't get all salty at me with that comment... they're just two different styles. Both have their merits.
I zipped the blues in the background to create a sense of space and add a little texture. I do love me my zipatone brush in photoshop. Speaking of, photoshop was being a supreme pain in the ass on this one. I used a new brush with a dissolve setting for the colors on the figure and ladder. I literally had to save every couple of minutes because it kept crashing photoshop. >:( I probably need to upgrade to a not so old version of it I guess.
Regardless I'm happy with how it came out. I spent my Easter afternoon finishing her off and it's been raining all day so it's been a good day. Love the rain. I also got to see my Mom for Easter since I spent all of a whole week with Pops in San Francisco. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and talked a lot about conspiracy theories. Haha I love talking about crazy stuff with my mom. She's the best!
Anyways, I hope your Easter was nice and that life is good.
God Keep Ya.
Zak
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
No Games, No Drama!
Look, I'm gonna be straight up and just say this post is gonna be mad offensive. So family, friends, impressionable children (really?) just be warned before you roll down this alleyway.
Ok, disclaimer over, let's get to the damn goods! I was hired by the gentlemen that have brought me literally to tears laughing when I listen to their podcast to make some images for their live show in Los Angeles last week. This was kind of a huge honor for me as they're just so on point. Their show is now being produced by some pretty high up big wigs... I don't wanna jinx their jam but it was the biggest thing I've ever been involved in! The podcast is called Uhh Yeah Dude and you should really get on it! It's hilarious... here's a clip:
Ok, so going from there I did 6 out of 18 bumpers for their show. Like I said I was super flattered and these are those bumpers which are like title cards for the segments of their show.
What's Ailing Seth by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Who is Parenting Harder by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Monsterweb by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Jah and his Poetry by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
This Week in Florida by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
I swear, I'm not exaggerating ANYTHING that happened in Florida.
Things Dudes Say Whilst Boning by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Yeah dudes really have been caught saying these things...
I really would go into describing these... but I think they speak for themselves. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and how they were received. As always you can click on the images to see larger versions AND read my comments on each one. The only thing I really wanted to say about them is that I've taken a lot of people's advice and muted my color palette. I went back to classic children's book illustration (haha I know, kind of ironic considering the subject matter) and just kinda had fun with it all.
Anyways, yes offensive images galore but I had fun (even on quick turn around) and I hope to do more with these guys. Their podcast is definitely worth it so give it a listen!
I also just got back from San Francisco, and man I had a blast! I took some much needed time off from, well, everything. I went out with my pops cause I really don't get to see him all that much and we had a pretty awesome time out there. I got stop by both Lucasfilm and Pixar while I was out there and that was fantastic! Loved both places out there, and will definitely be pursuing both of those venues. I'll leave you with one bit of advice if you're in SF soon - go to the Walt Disney Family Museum. It's an AMAZING museum and they have the very first sketches of Mickey Mouse housed there. They also have work from two of my favorite Disney Artsits : Mary Blair and Gustaf Tenggren - seeing their original work was staggering and inspiring. Amaaaaazing work! So seriously, go check that place out if you're out there. Then you can walk to Lucasfilm (!) and go see the Yoda Fountain. Nerdy goodness ;)
That's all I got right now!
Much love
zak
Ok, disclaimer over, let's get to the damn goods! I was hired by the gentlemen that have brought me literally to tears laughing when I listen to their podcast to make some images for their live show in Los Angeles last week. This was kind of a huge honor for me as they're just so on point. Their show is now being produced by some pretty high up big wigs... I don't wanna jinx their jam but it was the biggest thing I've ever been involved in! The podcast is called Uhh Yeah Dude and you should really get on it! It's hilarious... here's a clip:
Ok, so going from there I did 6 out of 18 bumpers for their show. Like I said I was super flattered and these are those bumpers which are like title cards for the segments of their show.
What's Ailing Seth by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Who is Parenting Harder by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Monsterweb by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Jah and his Poetry by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
This Week in Florida by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
I swear, I'm not exaggerating ANYTHING that happened in Florida.
Things Dudes Say Whilst Boning by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
Yeah dudes really have been caught saying these things...
I really would go into describing these... but I think they speak for themselves. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and how they were received. As always you can click on the images to see larger versions AND read my comments on each one. The only thing I really wanted to say about them is that I've taken a lot of people's advice and muted my color palette. I went back to classic children's book illustration (haha I know, kind of ironic considering the subject matter) and just kinda had fun with it all.
Anyways, yes offensive images galore but I had fun (even on quick turn around) and I hope to do more with these guys. Their podcast is definitely worth it so give it a listen!
I also just got back from San Francisco, and man I had a blast! I took some much needed time off from, well, everything. I went out with my pops cause I really don't get to see him all that much and we had a pretty awesome time out there. I got stop by both Lucasfilm and Pixar while I was out there and that was fantastic! Loved both places out there, and will definitely be pursuing both of those venues. I'll leave you with one bit of advice if you're in SF soon - go to the Walt Disney Family Museum. It's an AMAZING museum and they have the very first sketches of Mickey Mouse housed there. They also have work from two of my favorite Disney Artsits : Mary Blair and Gustaf Tenggren - seeing their original work was staggering and inspiring. Amaaaaazing work! So seriously, go check that place out if you're out there. Then you can walk to Lucasfilm (!) and go see the Yoda Fountain. Nerdy goodness ;)
That's all I got right now!
Much love
zak
Friday, April 1, 2011
Tokens Only aka I Could Be Happy On My Own
Franz Ferdinand - Live Alone
I'll be talking a little bit about my comic, Tokens Only, today. It's something I've wanted to get back into for awhile, and I wanted to give a little explanation on it's hiatus.
Tokens Only Strikes Back by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
So here you can see the new promo image from the series. High contrast, muted tones, it's what my art is morphing into. It's weird when you steer your work into new territory. It's actually frightening to venture into unknown places with yourself, and get amazingly overwhelming responses from it. I've been getting a lot of thumbs up approvals from peers and editors. And more work as well & that's the important part. But I've been feeling I wanted a change in my art for awhile, and while it was a little scary to take that dip into the deep end, I'm glad I did. Risk is a good thing kids. Take your chances.
A couple of things: When I started Tokens Only I originally wanted to write something that was akin to Scrubs. I'm not gonna lie, it's my favorite sitcom. It hits all my nerd and emotional buttons in one fell swoop, and it made for a lot of comfort nights when I was going through some rough shit. I still watch the seasons when I get depressed over something. It's literally my comfort food. But the more and more I watch it I realize that while I love it, I want my own book to be it's own thing. I am very much a guy who has gone his own way in life, and I want my work to reflect that. Just look at my work - I could easily conform to making superhero stuff (which is totally fine, I still love me some Batman!) but it's just not me. And that's all I know how to be. But enough wearing my heart on my sleeve...
So I got a great book from my pal Zach called Story and it's helped my writing tremendously. We sat down with the story and he walked me through the story points I had. One of the greatest compliments I've received from him is that I'm a naturally gifted storyteller... man that's awesome! So anyways, when we took these story points down I started to realize I wanted to go deeper and add elements of classic literature character development to my story. While broad comedy with good character development is a great approach (Scrubs) I find myself wanting more.
Tokens Only will still be a Webcomic and free online. The goal will always be for it to be a finite story, and collected into book format though. I have other stories I want to tell, but this is the one I wanted to do first. It's closest to my heart right now. I also will be veering away from traditional webcomic traditions. I'll be on a consistent schedule when work allows, but it's going to be a long form comic. Not in strip form or short arc format. Much love to my webcomic brothers and sisters out there, but the story I wanna tell just doesn't fit into the typical webcomic mold.
A lot of that is what has led to the hiatus. I did have all intentions of launching and updating consistently after NYCC last year but the opportunities I got from that convention were too good to pass up. In that time I've done work for Threadless, Lord of the Rings, Uhh Yeah Dude, 3 independent comic anthologies and I'm working on a short story with my pal Dave Hendrick. But what it really came down to was that I got into a story that wasn't feeling quite right and even though I wrote it out before hand I wasn't happy with it. I refuse to churn out crap just to be productive. Like I've said before... Tokens Only is my heart comic. It's me talking about life through my characters & a lot of my experiences are in this book. I'm not one to really wear my heart on my sleeve all that much, so it's been a challenge but it's what I want to do.
So that's what it is. My goal is to have the book back and going by June and I'm excited to be working on this again finally.
God keep ya,
Zak
I'll be talking a little bit about my comic, Tokens Only, today. It's something I've wanted to get back into for awhile, and I wanted to give a little explanation on it's hiatus.
Tokens Only Strikes Back by ~spicypeanut on deviantART
So here you can see the new promo image from the series. High contrast, muted tones, it's what my art is morphing into. It's weird when you steer your work into new territory. It's actually frightening to venture into unknown places with yourself, and get amazingly overwhelming responses from it. I've been getting a lot of thumbs up approvals from peers and editors. And more work as well & that's the important part. But I've been feeling I wanted a change in my art for awhile, and while it was a little scary to take that dip into the deep end, I'm glad I did. Risk is a good thing kids. Take your chances.
A couple of things: When I started Tokens Only I originally wanted to write something that was akin to Scrubs. I'm not gonna lie, it's my favorite sitcom. It hits all my nerd and emotional buttons in one fell swoop, and it made for a lot of comfort nights when I was going through some rough shit. I still watch the seasons when I get depressed over something. It's literally my comfort food. But the more and more I watch it I realize that while I love it, I want my own book to be it's own thing. I am very much a guy who has gone his own way in life, and I want my work to reflect that. Just look at my work - I could easily conform to making superhero stuff (which is totally fine, I still love me some Batman!) but it's just not me. And that's all I know how to be. But enough wearing my heart on my sleeve...
So I got a great book from my pal Zach called Story and it's helped my writing tremendously. We sat down with the story and he walked me through the story points I had. One of the greatest compliments I've received from him is that I'm a naturally gifted storyteller... man that's awesome! So anyways, when we took these story points down I started to realize I wanted to go deeper and add elements of classic literature character development to my story. While broad comedy with good character development is a great approach (Scrubs) I find myself wanting more.
Tokens Only will still be a Webcomic and free online. The goal will always be for it to be a finite story, and collected into book format though. I have other stories I want to tell, but this is the one I wanted to do first. It's closest to my heart right now. I also will be veering away from traditional webcomic traditions. I'll be on a consistent schedule when work allows, but it's going to be a long form comic. Not in strip form or short arc format. Much love to my webcomic brothers and sisters out there, but the story I wanna tell just doesn't fit into the typical webcomic mold.
A lot of that is what has led to the hiatus. I did have all intentions of launching and updating consistently after NYCC last year but the opportunities I got from that convention were too good to pass up. In that time I've done work for Threadless, Lord of the Rings, Uhh Yeah Dude, 3 independent comic anthologies and I'm working on a short story with my pal Dave Hendrick. But what it really came down to was that I got into a story that wasn't feeling quite right and even though I wrote it out before hand I wasn't happy with it. I refuse to churn out crap just to be productive. Like I've said before... Tokens Only is my heart comic. It's me talking about life through my characters & a lot of my experiences are in this book. I'm not one to really wear my heart on my sleeve all that much, so it's been a challenge but it's what I want to do.
So that's what it is. My goal is to have the book back and going by June and I'm excited to be working on this again finally.
God keep ya,
Zak
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